There have been developed various apparatuses and methods for separating components of biological materials. Many of the methods rely on centrifuging the biological materials and any fluids used to treat the cells or as solvents or carriers. When uncontaminated samples of supernatant are to be taken from centrifuged biological materials including cells, the samples must be taken before chains in the denser cell materials begin to relax and the denser cell materials begin to migrate up into the supernatant layer of the centrifuged solution, thereby building time constraints into production processes. Commonly used methods include simply aspirating the supernatant obtained by centrifuging a mixture or solution of the biological material and withdrawing samples of supernatant before migration of the denser materials into the supernatant layer. In other methods, liquids or supernatant containing the biological material are passed through any of a large variety of strainers or filters.
Other more complicated methods have been used to separate biological materials.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,129,828 issued Oct. 10, 2000 to Sheldon et al., discloses electrophoresis of biological samples to utilize the differential charge-to-mass ratio of sample constituents so as to control the migration of materials within a solution.
Another method for isolation and sorting of biological materials involves anchoring of biological material which has been separated from cellular milieu to a support such as glass coverslips, glass or polymer beads, then labeling the biological material in the polymerized or cross-linked system with magnetic particles. The magnetic particle properties are then exploited for isolation of the biological material. An example of this method is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,665,582, issued to Kausch and Narayanswami Sep. 9, 1997.
There is still a need for a simple, easy way to cleanly separate biological materials.
Therefore, it is an object of this invention to provide a method and apparatus for separation of biological materials.
Additional objects, advantages and novel features of the invention will be set forth in part in the description which follows, and in part will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon examination of the following or may be learned by practice of the invention. The objects and advantages of the invention may be realized and attained by means of the instrumentalities and combinations particularly pointed out in the appended claims.